Agape was really surprised when he saw that man for the first time.
He would be very tall if he could ever recover. Not only was the man skinny, but his body was also covered with scars from torture. Those wounds had not been treated and maintained, so that after the scabs fell off, the keloids were like a group of snakes with raised knots, twisting wildly on the skin.
His lower abdomen was also deeply sunken, with only a thin layer of skin supporting his frame. Agape could tell that it was the result of long-term hunger and lack of water. He had seen slave owners use this trick on the island to deal with disobedient slaves.
"Are those injuries caused by your injuries?" he asked the young crew member reluctantly.
The young crew member hurriedly cleared his name: "No way, my good sir! When we picked him up, he was already like this! It's true that we didn't feed him much, but he is so big. , I can’t even afford it at sea!”
"How long have you been at sea?" Agape asked again.
The other party replied: "Three months, sir, this is a short voyage!"
Three months later, Agape couldn't help but feel compassion. If this person didn't have a strong body to rely on, I'm afraid he would have become a mummy by now.
He held back his discomfort and carefully observed the "goods" in front of him. A worn-out leather collar was tied around the man's neck, and an iron chain was tied around the back of his neck. The hawker's crew pulled him hard, and he was forced to raise his face in a daze.
Now, Agape was even more shocked. The man's entire face was covered with twisted knife marks and scratches from unknown sharp instruments. The longest one even split from the temple on his left face to the corner of his right face, which completely destroyed him. appearance. When his lightless dark eyes looked forward through the same wet and dirty black hair, he looked like a devil staring into the world through the abyss.
At that moment, an extremely ridiculous thought occurred in Agape's mind: Could this poor man be a slave who escaped from the island?
The crew member who tied him up was still bragging about his cargo to passers-by. One moment he said that this man was a foreign prince exiled from the far east, and the other moment he said he was a victorious warrior who had escaped from the Colosseum... The onlookers booed constantly, and Agape interrupted him and asked: "If I want to buy him, how much will it cost?"
"It's best to exchange for something, sir," said the crew member who brought him hastily. "You know, ships have no fixed abodes -"
He used a slightly formal word and coughed twice: "Local currency may not work well in other places."
Agape was still hesitating, but he saw the man's cloudy pupils scanning the bustling crowd in a hazy manner.
This person is going to die soon, maybe tomorrow, maybe tonight. If no one buys a lowly, disfigured slave, he will soon be abandoned. A heavy stone, together with this scarred skeleton, the boundless sea is his final grave.
He made up his mind.
"...I bought this man, give him some water, and I'll get the ransom."
When Agape came back, he only had a small linen bag in his hand.
"What is this, sir?" The sailors gathered around curiously, their curiosity overriding their concern for the insignificant slave. They just wanted to know what the man in front of them was willing to exchange.
"Although not from...the Molucca," Agape took a breath and passed the name vaguely, "it is also the most famous black pepper from Baramal, weighing about seven ounces. I know there are slaves Is this the precedent of redeeming yourself with pepper? Is this enough?”
There was a long and shocked silence. The crew looked at each other, and the silent communication was conveyed through their eyes. After a moment, a leading sailor solemnly nodded: "This is enough, and it is much more than the reward we deserve."
"Thank you for your kindness, sir!" shouted the previous crew member. "May God bless you!"
Agape held a thin iron chain in his hand. He looked down at the man, and the man looked back at him with blurred black pupils. Only then did he realize that he seemed to have caused trouble for himself. thing.
He had taken the opportunity to get rid of the spices that Old Aiden had brought to him, and what was left behind was this man covered in blood.
What to do now, take him home?
Agape asked him tentatively: "What...is your name?"
The man weakly opened his chapped, gray lips, and through his exposed mouth, Agape was shocked to find that his tongue had completely swollen due to long-term lack of water, and even blocked his throat.
He took a breath and didn't care anymore. He hurriedly asked the young crew member to help him carry the man home. By the time the crew placed him in front of the foyer, the man had a high fever all over his body and could not move at all. Despite this, he still managed to open his eyes and stared stubbornly at the outside world through his swollen eyelids.
"With all due respect, good sir." The sailor said in a dialect with a heavy accent, "Our captain said that this big man is really extraordinary. If he recovers from his injury, he might become a figure like the devil. You know? The small building is as clean as a church, it’s better not to be ruined by people like this.”
"Thank you." Agape shook his head, "I have my own plan."
He walked quickly to the house. In Hetty's arms, Lily was blinking at him with big eyes of expectation.
"Good morning, my little lily..." He couldn't help kissing Lily's nose, but he couldn't bear to tell her the truth.
How can I say that your soft-hearted father failed to buy you a sweet and juicy fire plum, but instead brought you a crippled and horribly disfigured man?
He motioned to Hetty to take Lily upstairs, then went out with the water glass and fed the man water first.
The clear water seemed to revive the other person's consciousness. He couldn't wait to sip and swallow the liquid in the cup, but this water was like raindrops on the stove and had no effect at all. He drank one drink, then another, but Agape could not let him drink any more. In the past few years of living in the seaport city, he had heard many stories about sailing at sea. Many of them were stranded on desert islands and became extremely thirsty. Encountering drinkable stream water, bursting your belly alive.
He told Hetty that this was a slave he had rescued from the crew. Although the housekeeper did not agree with the master's approach, he quickly prepared a bucket of warm water for washing.
Then... there was no more. Sitting in the barrel, the slave began to drink the bath water in a daze. By the time Agape found out, the water line had dropped a little, so he had to use a bandage to wrap the slave His mouth was temporarily tied up.
They spent a lot of soap and orange peels. He and Hetty poured out the first bucket of turbid water mixed with red and black. The second bucket was also not spared. When the third bucket was washed, they worked together to wash it. The man carried it and wrapped it in a bath towel, and then put it on the floor that Hetty had made temporarily.
After doing all this, both of them were exhausted and sweating.
Hetty went upstairs to take care of Lily, and Agape was sitting next to the sofa. He finally saw the man's appearance clearly.
I don’t know who did this cruel thing, but his chest and back were covered with marks, cuts, and whip marks—it was no ordinary whip, Agape could tell. This kind of wound with torn skin and flesh, and even scars that are hideous, must have been caused by a cruel torture device that was twisted with several thin vines, without removing the thorns, and subjected to countless times of hot oil and cold water. The scars on his face were even more curled up, and the edges were whitened by the sea water for a long time. He would never have a chance to heal in this life.
In addition to the injuries on his body, his hands also had burn marks, as if he had been forced to grab a handful of red charcoal. Not to mention the palm prints, even the fingerprints were burned away.
Agape could not help but sigh pitifully.
Putting these aside, the man's lips were thinned and his nose was high enough. If he was not disfigured, he must be a handsome man. Although at first, the color of his hair and eyes made Agape palpitate... But how could that devil, who occupies the pinnacle of power and wealth in the world, end up like this?
The man's body suddenly moved, and Agape asked hurriedly: "Are you awake?"
He reluctantly opened his eyes and looked at him blankly.
"Do you remember your name?"
The man's lips kept opening and closing, and he was in a daze for a long time. Finally, he answered him in a voice as hoarse as gravel: "I...I don't remember."